


The Days Were Bright Red

by fightingtherobots



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:04:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightingtherobots/pseuds/fightingtherobots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the attack on Trost, Jean sits alone in his bunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Days Were Bright Red

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a line in Scheherazade by Richard Siken: "...the days / were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple / to slice into pieces."

Jean sat on this bunk. His back was pressed to the wall and his knees tucked against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around them. Leaning his head back against the wall, Jean bit his tongue, hard enough for it to hurt but not hard enough for it to bleed, and squeezed his eyes shut. He shook with the effort of holding back his sobs.

Sadness curled tightly in his chest, urging him with painful prods toward tears. It was like a weight dragging him down: though the bed, through the floor, to the dark, deep underground. Jean struggled against the feeling like a cornered animal, scared of the painful tightness of despair that had inexplicably taken up residence in his chest. He wished, desperately, that the feeling would do whatever harm it had come to do and get it over with, but when he opened his mouth to curse the mysterious pain, the only sound that came out was a choked sob.

Lowering his forehead to his knees, Jean tried to pull in a deep breath through his mouth, but it only resulted in another broken cry. He shook with the effort of trying not to cry until he shook with the force of his sobs.

All Jean knew what that it hurt: his chest hurt and he was missing something very dear to him.

"Jean?" 

He heard his name but didn't look up to see who had spoken. Jean recognized the voice, but his mind seemed to insist that the speaker could not exist. The memory curled talons around his heart, ripping into the fibers of the muscle before releasing its grip, leaving Jean even more lost. He could not figure out where the sadness came from, but he sobbed regardless. 

"Jean?"

This time his name was accompanied by the sound of footsteps heading toward him. He shook his head as if he could deny who the speaker was; as if he could deny that he knew who was approaching him simply by the footsteps. The bed shifted as someone sat on the outside edge of it. A hand rested itself on his shoulder.

Jean sobbed harder.

"Jean, I'm here. It will be okay."

Jean looked up to see Marco staring at him. The other boy's expression was soft; his wide, brown eyes concerned above constellations of freckles.

The hand on Jean's shoulder started moving in hesitant but comforting circles and Jean let go on his knees as his arms went limp. With Marco’s touch, the feeling in his chest did an odd thing: it lessened. With Marco beside him the unexplained pain had been cut in half, though the strange feeling of something missing had not disappeared. 

Jean stared at Marco silently, his face wet and blotchy, and tried to catch his breath. Marco smiled slightly at him, encouragingly, and it felt suddenly as if Jean had been stabbed in the chest with loneliness. 

Jean cried out and flung himself at Marco, searching again for the brief bit of comfort the other boy had offered. He cried against the Marco’s neck, the aching sadness nesting itself further into Jean’s chest even as Marco rubbed his back, making small, comforting noises.

Jean was dimly aware that that his reaction to Marco’s touch didn't make sense. None of this did. He should not be crying: Marco was here with him. Marco said it would be okay. 

"Jean."

His name again. Jean lifted his head from Marco's neck. Jean could count his freckles, if he wanted to, for how close they were. He wanted to kiss each one. 

"I love you. You know that, right?" Marco asked, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Jean nodded, though he felt as if someone had torn out a piece of his lungs as he remembered the first night Marco had told Jean that he loved him. There were millions of stars in the sky that night, and it had seemed as if some of them had come to rest on Marco’s skin. 

Tears still fell from Jean’s eyes and he squeezed them shut, trying to reason out why thinking of Marco made him so sad. Jean rested his forehead against Marco’s, shaking his head a bit as if to clear it. As if he could simply think away the irrational sadness that weighed him down from his very core. As he leaned forward, Marco's hands came up to cup Jean's face, thumbs wiping carefully at his wet cheeks. 

"Jean," he murmured quietly. "Jean, I love you. Look at me."

Something inside him rattled, like the vibrations of a titan’s footsteps thundering through him. The feeling of Marco's hands on his cheeks turned cold before the feeling faded away completely just as Jean took a deep, shaking breath. He opened his eyes. 

Half of Marco's face was missing. 

Jean screamed, the air escaping his lungs before he had even thought to give it permission. His chest felt as if it had been punctured a thousand times with shards of glass as he suddenly realized what he had forgotten and the source of his sadness.

Marco in front of him, dead: a glassy, lifeless eye inches from his as they sat with foreheads pressed together. Jean jumped back, disrupting their balance and the corpse in front of him fell backwards onto the bed. The one eye above the cascade of freckles didn't drop its gaze. 

Jean kneeled on the bed, barely able to see what remained of the smiling boy that had comforted him on so many occasions as his eyes clouded with tears. 

"I love you," he gasped out between sobs. He rocked back on his heels, running his hands over his face, through his hair. He felt the despair, heavy like a stone in his chest and Jean screamed once again, his voice torn and ragged, as he lurched forward from where he sat on his bunk, his knees tucked to his chest. His face was puffy and sore from the amount of crying he had done before he tired himself out enough to fall asleep.

Marco was gone. Dead. 

The weight in Jean's chest hadn't vanished with the rest of the dream. He wasn't sure if it ever would.


End file.
